Happy new year! You all know what that means: the NFL Draft is just months away! I’m sure that’s exactly what all of you thought about as the clock struck midnight and the ball dropped. For real though, the NFL draft is the best of them all. Making predictions about what teams will pick what specific players based on the draft order and each franchise’s needs is honestly pretty fun. I’m not going to pretend like I’m up to date on every college football player in the nation but using the knowledge that I do have, I get enjoyment out of spending time on this topic.
For those of you who don’t know me: hey! How are ya? My name is Kaley and I’m a Patriots fan. Feel free to fight me. Anyways, from my perspective, I’ve determined three primary needs of this team: interior defensive lineman, defensive edge, tight end and quarterback. This New England defense is set to lose some free agent defensive pieces this offseason and in general, need some help as far as rushing defense goes. Also, Brian Hoyer and Danny Etling don’t exactly do it for me as backups to Tom Brady, right now or anywhere down the road in the future. Possessing six picks in the top three rounds of the draft, I’m hoping to see them address their needs early and often.
I think my top priority for the Patriots in this draft would be an interior DL. Lawrence Guy has treated them well this season, as has Adam Butler, but both Danny Shelton and Malcom Brown are going to be free agents and besides, these latter two aren’t exactly the best, either. The run defense has been touchy this season so regardless, they need help up front on defense. I came up with two big names I’d like to see New England draft at this position: Alabama’s Raekwon Davis and Clemson’s Dexter Lawrence. Davis is 6’7”, 306 pounds and is pretty good in movement, is flexible and has a good pad level thanks to his kinda lanky frame. Lawrence is a big, big name and I would be so in love if the Pats snagged him in the first round. He’s 350 pounds and could obviously benefit from losing even just 10 or 15 pounds in regards to having better range. Nevertheless, his quickness and power plus his size and frame are what makes him so sought after and what give him so much potential. I would really like to see NE take either of these players in the first round and address their glaring need.
My next priority would have to be defensive edge. With Adrian Clayborn turning out to be complete trash, Derek Rivers getting no playing time this season and Trey Flowers set to break the bank in the coming months (dear Patriots: please pay him. I’d do anything), the Patriots need to improve the edge, quickly. New England has had a pretty solid pass rush this season despite their low sack numbers, but I would not mind them picking up an early-down defender even if Flowers does re-sign here. One name I have in mind is Zach Allen out of Boston College. This bulldozer of a pass rusher standing at 6’5”, 285 pounds and is essentially immovable. For his size, he has decent power and even better athleticism.
A close third, my next priority is tight end. For some reason, everyone thinks that Rob Gronkowski is either retiring or leaving the Patriots this year, but I’m not having it. I don’t believe either of those things is happening. Although, I would be dumb to fail to acknowledge the fact that Gronk has pretty much been a shell of himself this season. Maybe he steps on the gas in the playoffs, who knows. But with the combination of him playing the way he has of late and the likes of Jacob Hollister and Dwayne Allen behind him on the depth chart, I’d like to see the Patriots draft a TE, particularly a more pass-catching-oriented one. Excuse me as I lack my college tight end knowledge, so I had to do a bit of research on this one. CBS’ Chris Trapasso has the Patriots taking Noah Fant out of Iowa, who is exactly that: a pass-catcher. New England’s current tight ends block perfectly fine. I’d like to see a better set of hands to complement Gronk.
Last but not least, the quarterback position. Solely because, as I said earlier, Brian Hoyer and Danny Etling really don’t do it for me. At all. Brady is going to be the Patriots’ quarterback for a couple more years, but I would like some sort of a plan and have a developmental QB in place once he does decide to call it a career. I certainly don’t expect them to pick a QB high in this draft, but would also like to see them snag a guy with at least a bit of potential. I would KILL to see New England draft Will Grier out of West Virginia. He would automatically become the quarterback of the future. He has a great arm, great accuracy (his 75.9 adjusted completion percentage is 11th best in the country, according to Pro Football Focus), is a great leader and made WV relevant again.
All in all, as long as the Patriots get some defensive help early on in this year’s draft, I’ll be a happy camper. I may be done with the article, but I brought a friend of mine to talk about his team’s upcoming draft! Take it over, Bryce.
Thanks, Kaley, so I’m Bryce aka @ItsBrizz and you probably don’t know me, but the only thing you really need to know about me I’m a huge Giants fan. Now before you click off the article, don’t worry I’m not here to talk about two certain games, I’m here to talk about the upcoming draft like Kaley did, except from a Giants’ point of view.
So the Giants have plenty of needs, but I believe the 3 biggest ones are QB, defensive end, and cornerback/safety. I’ll go through my top players at linebacker, corner, and safety, but there’s only one QB I want and I’ll get to him later.
So first things first, the corner position. As good as Jackrabbit used to be, he’s just not that great of a player anymore. I do like B.W. Webb and I think he has a bit of potential in him, but even if he does that’s still only one corner I have faith in on the roster. So obviously there’s one corner, in particular, that is head and shoulders above the rest, and that’s Greedy Williams out of LSU. He’s the only corner in the draft I’d want at our pick (currently number 6). Greedy has superstar written all over him, I think he’d be making an immediate impact on our defense if we selected him. There might not be another corner I’d want at 6, but if the Giants still wanted a corner in the 2nd round, Julian Love out of Notre Dame would be a steal, so would Amani Oruwariye out of Penn State.
Now, let’s talk safeties. Again, there’s really only one player at this position that stands head and shoulders above the rest, and that’s Deionte Thompson out of Alabama. I don’t know what Bama is feeding their safeties, but they always seem to produce some good ones (hence Landon Collins). The Giants could definitely use Thompson to pair with Collins (if they keep him) and I wouldn’t hate drafting him at 6, but he’s not my main choice. If we want a 2nd or even a 3rd round safety, Taylor Rapp out of Washington would not be a bad pick.
Onto a more crucial need for the old Big Blue, defensive end. I have this to say about the defensive ends this year, it is a VERY good year to need one. Obviously, the Giants won’t get Nick Bosa, but there are lots of other great players at the position. Some that catch my eye are also OLBs, but we’ll lump them together for the sake of convenience. Clelin Ferrell out of Clemson is a beast and I think will be terrifying QBs for a very long time. These next two guys are OLBs but I want to bring them up anyway, Josh Allen out of Kentucky and Jachai Polite out of Florida. I think Allen would be the better pick, he put Kentucky football on the map for the first time in a longgggg time and he’s an OLB, normally a QB or an RB in college puts a team on his back but Allen showed us defense still matters. I like saying that after this draft, the Bills won’t even have the best Josh Allen in the NFL (I’m sorry Bills Mafia).
I mentioned there was one QB I wanted, it’s time to talk about him. If you know me or follow me, you know who it is already, but I’ll explain who it is for the people that don’t know me. The words I want to hear Goodell say on draft night go as follows: “With the 6th Pick in the NFL Draft, the New York Giants select, Dwayne Haskins, THE Ohio State University.” Haskins is what the Giants absolutely need, forget Will Grier (sorry Kaley), forget Drew Lock, and forget Daniel Jones, HASKINS is what the city of New York needs. He’s got the pocket presence you need, he can slip out at any time and pick up some yards, he doesn’t know how to underperform, and pairing that cannon of an arm with the likes of Saquon Barkley, Odell Beckham Jr, and Sterling Shepard is something I PRAY to the football gods at night happens. I hope Gettleman just does this one favor for New York because I think it’ll lead to banners if he does.
That’s about it for this article, no more surprise guests that I know of. As I said, you can follow me on twitter @ItsBrizz, but if you not following Kaley (@kaley8711) if you from Boston you missing out on some great meme content. I hope y’all enjoyed this duo article as it’s the first time I’ve ever done one, and I’ll see y’all again soon!
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